Did Jesus support a violent revolt against Rome? The one argument that probably gets used more than any other in support of that view is that when Jesus gets arrested in the Gospels, his followers pull out their swords to fight. What are they doing with swords? Why are they fighting? Since this is in all the Gospels (independently attested) and since it’s not a story that later Christians would be likely to make up (since they would want to portray Jesus to their Roman audiences as peace-loving, not as a rabble-rouser) — wouldn’t that show that it’s something that really happened? And if so, then clearly Jesus was interested in arming his followers and fighting the authorities.
That’s how the argument goes, and it’s a very good one. But after some long reflection, I don’t find it convincing. Here is how I discussed the matter in my book Jesus Before the Gospels (the only book title that I deeply regret! No one knows what it’s about but it’s unusually important: it’s about how memory works and how distorted memories affected the stories about Jesus that were being passed around by word of mouth in the years before they were written down by the Gospel writers):
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In all four Gospels, at least one of Jesus’ followers is armed when he is arrested. In the Synoptics, this unnamed follower draws his sword and strikes the slave of the high priest, cutting off his ear (see Mark 14:47). In John’s Gospel we learn that the sword-bearing disciple was Peter (John 18: 10). Jesus puts a halt to his follower’s violent inclination, however, and humbly submits to his arrest. In Luke’s version he does so only after healing the ear (Luke 22:51).
From the eighteenth century until the present day (starting with Hermann Samuel Reimarus, the first scholar to write a critical study of the historical Jesus in the modern period), there have been scholars, and non-scholars, who have thought that this incident in the garden is both altogether plausible and indicative of the character of Jesus’ message and mission. In this opinion, the incident must be historical for a rather simple reason. What later Christian would make up such a story? When Christians were telling and retelling their accounts of Jesus’ life in the years after his death, of course they would want him to appear entirely palatable to their audiences. Nothing would make Jesus more palatable in Roman eyes than the view that he was a peace-loving promoter of non-violence, not a violent insurrectionist against Rome. If Jesus allowed his followers to be armed, however, that would suggest he was in favor of them carrying out acts of violence. If later Christians would not make up the idea that Jesus’ promoted violence, then no one could make up the idea that his followers were armed. Following this logic, the story of the sword in the garden is not an invented tradition but a historical fact. Jesus’ followers, therefore, were armed. Moreover, if they were armed, so this reasoning goes, then Jesus must have anticipated and even promoted an armed rebellion.
There’s a good deal of sense to this view and it is easy to see why it is attractive. Still, at the end of the day I don’t find it convincing. This is for two reasons…
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What is the Greek word always translated as “sword.”? There were many different types of sword in the Greco-Roman world, each with it’s own distinct name.
The word here is μάχαιραν (MACHAIRAN)
Thank you. Wikipedia’s describes a machaira as most often a small sword or large knife used for cutting. Only one side is sharp. This seems quite consistent with what one of the disciples might have carried for defense at night in an unfamiliar and apparently hostile city.
That’s a great observation, I was going to make that point in regards to being caught in very scary confrontation in the night and the first thing you may do is defend youself, then flee, as you are the ouly one who is armed and the whole gang just beat feet. I believe as Jesus had previously told his disciples to get a sword, they had two, that’s enough, not enough for a rebellion, but enough to fend off robbers etc..
Didn’t the disciples desert Jesus and flee in Mark? Weren’t they too drunk from the wine they drank in the last supper that they kept sleeping over and over despite Jesus telling them not to sleep for three times? Maybe they were not able to fight. Also the naked man fleeing is a strange diversion which I could never understand.
No. Drunk???
11 people not able to stay awake for 3 consecutive times and they were drinking wine earlier. It sounds like they had much to drink. Anyway, they did forsake Jesus according to Mark. Maybe that is why
Bart, you have written many times that the gospel writers were not historians, were writing years if not decades later, and wrote with theology in mind, not history. To my eyes, the entire episode smacks of theology-based fiction, a device meant to kill a bunch of birds with one rock. The multiple goals may have been to get Jesus to Calvary, castigate the Jews, create a villain/betrayer, and establish jesus as a healer/peacemaker. The simple reality that Roman soldiers under a sword attack at night in an isolated garden would have responded with overwhelming and deadly force. Jesus and his followers would have been killed then and there. And the idea of jesus stopping the action and reattaching an ear is theology, not history. As likely that jesus was arrested after a traffic stop with pot found in his chariot!
“it is very hard to see why the disciples were not arrested.”
I can see two reasons:
1. Those sent to arrest Jesus, ‘soldiers, their officer, and the Jewish police’ (Jn18:12) sent from the ‘chief priests, the scribes, and the elders’ (Mk14:43) were under orders to arrest Jesus, rather than his entourage also. Judas had arranged a sign to pinpoint Jesus “The one I will kiss is the man; arrest him and lead him away under guard.” (Mk14:44) and in John Jesus asks “‘For whom are you looking?’ They answered, ‘Jesus of Nazareth.’” (Jn18:5). They weren’t looking to arrest the whole group, just one man.
2. Jesus gave himself up. Even when the swords started swinging it was probably thought better to leave with the target they had under arrest, rather than risk further injury or death (especially during a Passover festival) by engaging in a deadly struggle to arrest or kill his followers. After all, they had who they had come for and his followers had just demonstrated they were prepared to use deadly force to resist – why engage in an unnecessary fight?
But what do we say about Luke 22:36?
“But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one”
Surely this is a direct order from Jesus to be armed?
Seems to be, yes. But it’s only in Luke and is generally not seen as a saying actually going back to Jesus (I’m speakingn here of the historical Jesus, not of the various ways he is portrayed in teh Gospels).
The sword fight at the time of arrest shows some important things. Not only did the disciples come heavy, but one of them lost it (as humans are known to do) and lashed out violently at the Romans. Jesus fixed that, and showed that he was serious about non-violence, and that he himself was not human. This is very important, because soon enough, people will be asking why he cannot save himself from crucifixion. Did it really happen? Yes.
“If I’m right, then the sword fight in the garden is a distorted memory.”
I see the progression that you make with this being a distorted memory but it still seems like a made up story that stuck. Is there much difference?
Not really, so long as it’s a story that was made up in part on something that actually happened.
I have never understood how it was possible for a disciple (identified as Peter only by John) to attack a servant of the arresting authorities with a sword in the middle of the arrest and not himself be arrested, if not actually cut down in response. The moment when an arrest takes place is always tense, as any police officer will testify.
But this conundrum also means I have a problem with your speculation that the story was inserted to illustrate how “he who lives by the sword dies by the sword” since nothing happens to the sword-wielder. It seems more likely that it was intended to show that armed resistance was neither necessary nor useful, that Jesus’s message would not be spread by the sword. (Even the passage in Luke of Jesus telling his followers to arm themselves is meant to make a connection to Isaiah’s “transgressors.”)
Certainly the idea of Christian pacifism extends in the third century, with Origen explaining why Christians should not join the army, but should instead pray for the emperor’s success in battle.
In John 18:10 the verse gives the servant’s name (Malchus). I am aware that John was written close to the end of the 1st century (60 years or so after Christ’s death). Could this possibly give some creedance that the event actually happened? Maybe someone could have found descendants of Malchus and asked some questions. Also, maybe the disciples weren’t arrested in the attack because they attacked a non roman soldier? Could that be an answer?
Usually this kind of thing is called “verisimilitude,” where an author makes up a specific detail to provide believability to an account. Happens all the time — still today!
But do the Gospel accounts specify ‘swords’?
‘Machaira’ in the Septuagint corresponds to Hebrew ‘machelet’ – a sacrificial knife, or carving knife. As in the story of Abraham and Isaac. ‘Short sword’ is a secondary meaning. If it is Passover, then any male Jew in Jerusalem will very likely be carrying a machaira; as they will be needing it in the Temple for the Passover sacrifice.
So Jesus disciples were not armed. On this see Paula Fredriksen.
I believe it means both, actually.
No Bart, Peter’s implement must either have been a sword or a sacrificial knife, it cannot have been both.
In Mark, the ‘machaira’ is found only in this passage; once for Peter’s implement, once for the weaponry of the arresting party in the combined formula ‘swords and clubs’. But Jesus’s question at Mark 14:48 ‘why come to me with weapons?’ implies that Peter’s implement was not a weapon.
Otherwise; ‘machaira’ is absent from ‘Q’ material – but found in the particular traditions of Matthew, Luke and John; always with the clear meaning ‘sword’. And of course, a lot in Revelation.
In Paul ‘machaira’ is found twice, both in Romans. At Romans 13:4 it refers metaphorically to the ‘power of the sword’ rather than to any specific implement. At Romans 8:35 it is commonly rendered as ‘sword’; but given Romans 8:36, ‘slaughterer’s knife’ must be equally possible.
Your proposal. that Mark introduces Peter with a ‘machaira’ to provide context to a teaching of Jesus that is only found in Matthew’s special tradition, “the one who lives by the sword dies by the sword” , Looks most unsafe to me.
Arresting everyone carrying a ‘machaira’ at Passover, would have imprisoned over 100,000.
That’s right. It was one or the other. I’m saying the *word* could mean either one. In Greek the word was used for a long dagger, a sacrificial dagger, or a curved sword to differentiate it from a straight sword. The word itself does not indicate which it was. And I’m not saying that Romans were rounding up everyone with a machaira.
This may be a silly question but weren’t swords expensive? Would it be strange for a poor fisherman like Peter to be able to afford one?
I suppose one could get them second hand. (seriously)
That was my very question, @hairj42: what would a poor fisherman, especially in this time, be doing with anything that could properly be called a sword? Swords were the equipment of soldiers and fighting men. Could Peter or whomever have been a former of either of those, still retaining the weapon?
In Mark 14:43, Mark being our earliest Gospel, it says a mob came to the garden: “Judas, one of the twelve, came up accompanied by a crowd with swords and clubs, who were from the chief priests and the scribes and the elders.” And then the sword incident in v. 47: “But one of those who stood by drew his sword, and struck the slave of the high priest and cut off his ear.” Jesus then appears to rebuke the crowd, not his disciples: ““Have you come out with swords and clubs to arrest Me, as you would against a robber?” “One of those who stood by” does not sound like it was referring to a disciple, but one of the crowd, who got carried away and struck the slave in the confusion. Hence Jesus rebukes the crowd, not his disciples. This seems more plausible to me, and it eventually morphed into a disciple, in fact Peter himself, being the swordsman, and the wounded also given a name (Malchus, in John).
I can’t remember the name of the book where I read it, but I remember reading that the Romans were OK with people having ordinary knives and light weapons they could use to to fend off would be robbers, but that having military grade weapons like swords without authorization could get them the death penalty. I this is correct, wouldn’t that put the story in a different light?
We actually don’t have any information like that from antiquity. It’s probably just someone’s guess.
Dear Bart,
Considering that we have at least a thousand years of the Bible in circulation, is there anything left to be discovered about it? I mean, there are some controversies among scholar about specific issues, but are they going to be ever solved? A major archeological discovery that changes the understanding of the Bible completely seems very unlikely, don´t you think?
Thanks a lot for the help!
Best regards
Gustavo
On the contrary, things get discovered all the time that help us understand more and more. It’s a thriving field with new insights all the time.
Dr. Ehrman,
You said earlier that you think that Judas reported to the Roman authorities that Jesus was planning to become king of the Jews, based on the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ preaching. But as you yourself point out, the Gospels also have Jesus predicting that his twelve closest followers will become kings of the tribes of Israel at the same time.
If Jesus’ prophecy that he will be King of the Jews was sufficient for the Romans to arrest him, why, by the same token, wouldn’t his plans to make his followers kings of (some of the) Jews also justify arresting them as well?
Given that Mark doesn’t have any of the disciples present at the Crucifixion and subsequent events, isn’t it likely that Peter et al. were _not_ present when Jesus was arrested, and instead went into hiding? Which would be a different reason for considering the events of Gethsemane to be a later embellishment.
They may have been justified to do so, but they chose not to, as sometimes happened. They may not have known much about the followers, just that Jesus was making this claim. It appears they were with him when arrested, but fled soon after — presumably getting outta town and heading back to GAlilee, where the Jerusalem officials had no jurisdiction.
I imagine swords were expensive items, so where would these poor peasants have got their money? Also, as in most societies right up to modern times, only the privileged or those with a specific licence were permitted to carry arms (the USA is a modern exception). Just on these criteria the events as described in the Gospels seem unlikely. Do you know how common, in that era and place, it was for ordinary folk to carry weapons?
No, the Romans world did not require licenses, and weapons could probably be obtained cheaply. Yes, many people would have been armed, in one way or another.
Regardless, it is a good story, that explores violence, law and more. But, only in Marc we have verses 14:51-52, do you have view about them?
My main view is that the common viwe that the author is talking about himself is flat-out wrong. Maybe it means that those who flee from Jesus instead of standing beside him are left naked to the world.
To demonstrate my intellectual investment in the Gethsemane arrest, I’m still hung up on the famous Mk 14:51-2 featuring the “young man” stripped of his sole piece of clothing at the end. After such a dramatic event, we get a seemingly anticlimactic/irrelevant incident. Why?
My main view of the verses is that the common view that the author is talking about himself is flat-out wrong. Maybe it means that those who flee from Jesus instead of standing beside him are left naked to the world.
Struggeling to see this as “distorted memory”. All four accounts from Gospels are so very much similar. Let’s imagine this situation: a lot of people (“οχλος”), servants , soldiers following Judas. It must have been some kind of a “buzzing” experience. All four accounts pointing out the “ear” of the slave (“δουλον”) – someone who is not that important, I would imagine, in the crowd, who is coming to get a man claiming to be the Son of God. And anyway all Jesus’s companions ran away after all of this…
Main goal was to bring Jesus.
And we have an account of Jesus saying: “I came, not to send peace, but a sword.” Mt 10,34 (I know that interpretation of this words may be different, taking into account the circumstances, but still his disciples heard the word: sword.)
On the other hand: was it common for Jewish people to carry a sword when travelling etc? Was it legal while under jurisdiction of Roman Empire?
Three of them are similar because Matthew and Luke got their story from Mark. John is different in lots of ways. That suggests that the story ahd been handed down in the oral tradition, familiar to many people but told in other ways. The Roman empire did not have national laws governing weaponry; it’s hard to know how much people were armed as a rule.
Cutting off an ear with a sword always seemed to me to be a difficult feat anyway. Try to imagine doing that with something as sharp as a samurai sword, and, yes, it could be done but the precision and control required would be awesome. You have to imagine any plausible sword of the time to be more like a roman gladius, and those were stubby and probably not really sharp enough to make a clean slice. Even when I was a little kid and heard that story I tried to visualize it, and it just seemed next to impossible. But I would like to see a Christian apologist try to demonstrate that it can be done, on another Christian apologist. I’d pay money to see that. What was the probability, anyway, in those times, of that sort of sword carrying? Seems like the Romans would looks askance at armed subjects.
Yeah, I’ve always wondered how one does that too. Romans certainly would have objected to anyone *using* swords!
It’s not easy to cut someone’s ear with one blow. Mark doesn’t seem concerned with facts. Whether the disciples were not arrested probably was the least of his matters. If he is writing in Greek then his way of constructing the narrative is bound by his previous knowledge and social time. Finding signs of realism would be like looking for the concept of perspective in art before Giotto’s painting.
But still, the picture conveyed is really precise. So where do we find such symbolism? It would be a good exercise to pile up all the influential greek authors of the time in order to gather meaning. But geographical distance and delay in information (there wasn’t internet), destruction of text and entropy, point to the fact that meaning has been lost.
And it’s quite ironic for a text that is supposed to be holy scripture.
Dr. Ehrman,
I’m afraid this may be demonstrating my ignorance but I am going for it! I don’t understand why there is an issue with the disciples pulling swords to fight if in the end they didn’t. Would they have been arrested for simply being willing to fight? If Jesus quelled the situation then the Roman Authority never actually engaged in a quarrel. Peter cutting off the ear of the soldier is more than likely an invention to prove the point but the situation of being willing to fight passes the criteria of multiple attestation. Thoughts?
Thanks, Jay
They did fight. That’s what lopping off someone’s ear is all about.
Who in your view actually arrested Jesus and who were they?
A band of soldiers from the Chief priests and Pharisees (John)
A Large crowd armed with swords and clubs sent from the chief priests and “elders”(matthew and mark)
A crowd that apparently included the chief priests and elders of the the temple (luke)
Not the biggest contradiction I know, but i am curious about the relative size and composition of the Judas party and if you care to, WERE the temple guard allowed to arrest people outside the temple? I have read no and I wonder if you have insight into that.
I don’t think we know for sure, but I suspect it was a group of temple guards dispatched by the temple authorities. But I’m open to the idea that it may have been some Roman soldiers (which is not what the Gospels themselves say, of course)
I have not seen any discussion of how common it would have been for 1st-century Jewish fisherman to have swords. It seems to me that an actual sword would have been an expensive thing, and not useful for fishermen (or other working-class professions). A dagger, maybe, for personal protection and as a tool (cutting fishing lines, e.g.). But swords are the tools of the military class, and to my mind it stretches credulity that ordinary folk would, or could afford to, own them–and I wonder if the Romans would have tolerated sword-carrying in a subject people, especially the Jews in Jerusalem at Passover.
Dr. Ehrman, are you familiar with any discussion of this specific topic?
Cutting off an ear. Was this a bull fight in Spain. This is something you see done after the battle, not during and certainly not the only injury.
It’s also interesting that it was an ear that was struck. Has anyone perceived this to be metaphorical? Also, what what is the consensus on what Jesus and his followers were actually called during his ministry? Nazarenes?
They probably weren’t called anything. And it’s hard to figure out what the signficance of the ear is, but one coudl come up with interesting speculations (e.g., Those who fight with the sword aren’t listening correctly….)
Distorted memory of whom? How many people were there to remember it?
People mostly “remember” things they did not experience, but that they heard about.
Dr. Ehrman,
when/(if?) Jesus said that «The Sabbath is made for humans not humans for the Sabbath and that therefore humans are lord of the Sabbath, how would most Jews at the time think of that? Wouldn’t they intepret this as someone trying to justify breaking the Sabbath?
(I’m in no way arguing that Jesus did break the Sabbath but just curious as to how most Jews at the time would have thought of this).
Some Jews would have agreed and others disagreed. Essenes would have vehemently disagreed. Pharisees would have been split. Oi polloi? My guess is that lots would agree. Human need trumps Sabbath observance.
Almost seems a little theological here! But really, I have come to take this story and the other sword references to give the impression that if you can, be a peaceful person, as the book of Romans puts forth, but there may be those rare occasions for self defending, and the garden incident shows the example of if they come for you because of your beliefs, don’t fight, put down your sword and go, as it is better to give your life for the gospel than anything else. Theology and history collide..maybe.
Thespologian: “It’s also interesting that it was an ear that was struck. Has anyone perceived this to be metaphorical?”
One can’t help but think of Antigonus biting off the ears of Hyrcanus, his uncle, thus rendering him permanently ineligible for the priesthood (Judean War, 1,279). Thus when the ear of the high priest’s servant in Mark’s story would no longer be able to assist in the temple. It may function as a small sign of the illegitimacy of the Judean priesthood that arrested and later condemned and handed over Jesus to Pilate. See also the tearing of the temple curtain at Jesus’ death as an omen of the coming destruction of the temple, which Jesus predicted and has now occurred for Mark. . For a brief description of the uniquely Markan characteristics of this story, see here:
https://ehrmanblog.org/forum/the-historical-jesus/jesus-a-militant-messiah/page-3/#p12949
In my studies of the Hebrew Bible it seems I recall this precedent of a peaceful almost resigned to suffer resistance – with the idea that a form of “deferred violence” unleashed by Yahweh in due course would settle the score.
NT Jesus and his movement, for the most part, would seem to dovetail (no pun in 10!) into that tradition would you agree with that or am I off the mark there ?
Thanks for your time
Who was the young man in Mark 14:51?
Who was in Matthew 28:3? Appearance is like lightning? What about Revelation 4:4-5? From the throne came flashes of lightning? We know who those elders are right? I pray to Zeus, but just interested in Christanity. As you probably know with my Gospel of Thomas interpretations.
I guess my real question is, why do you have a book with a picture of Jesus climbing on a ladder up a Giant? I thought was genius!
ItI stand corrected. Why does your book have a cover picture of Jesus as a giant? Is that saying Jesus is the ladder to heaven? The blood of the lamb took the scrolls from he who sat in the middle and the elders around him. That says Jesus is not the highest rank to me. Who was the elders in Revelation 4:4? I believe I asked this before. Revelation 4:5 says lightning from the throne and in Mathew 28 their appearance like lightning? I am just curious.
There were no Roman soldiers in Gethsemane. Jesus was captured with swords and clubs (knives and sticks) by a mob sent by the chief priests, scribes, and elders (i.e. Jewish Sandherim and not Pilatus). Could the mop have arrested all the 11 disciples, especially if some were armed? I doubt it. Josephus wrote that Essenes “carry nothing at all with them when they travel … though still they take their weapons with them, for fear of thieves”. Hence, there is almost contemporary account about Jews carrying weapons with them regardless of the Roman occupation. Why should Jesus’ disciples have been any different?
Dear Dr. Ehrman,
Who is the young man, wearing nothing but a linen garment, who fled naked when Jesus was arrested? (Mark 14:51-52)
I know there are hundreds of theories about that.
Can you tell me at least 5 or 10 of them, please?
Thanks a lot!
The two most common are that it was Mark himself (people always find that view attractive, though I don’t think I know of any scholar who argues for it) and that it is a symbolic passage in some way, that leaving the cloak behind might be, say, a symbolic indication of a purification that one has escaped their mortal existence to return to the way they were in Paradise, now that Jesus is to die for salvation. (Or pick your symbolism!)
Dear Dr Ehrman,
Do you think the episode of the naked young man in Mark 14:51-52 is based on Isaiah 20:3?
Thanks
I don’t. But they are the two streakers in the Bible.